


Each breath I left behind

by becka



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Blow Jobs, First Time, M/M, Post-Fall (Hannibal)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-02 00:06:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17877371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becka/pseuds/becka
Summary: In their post-fall life, Will worries that Hannibal loves him but doesn't desire him. He's wrong.





	Each breath I left behind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slowestdive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slowestdive/gifts).
  * Inspired by [[fanart] each breath you take is mine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17654249) by [slowestdive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slowestdive/pseuds/slowestdive). 



> For [Ash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slowestdive/profile) on (slightly after) the auspicious occasion of their birthday. I hope you like this, wonderful friend! <3
> 
> Eternal gratitude to [Lucy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/balefully/profile) for the beta.

Will isn’t good at cities. It’s easier to avoid eye contact in a crowd, but there are always people brushing past him, noisy and unpredictable. Will is better at individuals, and even working at the Bureau, he was glad to live far enough outside of DC that he couldn’t see or hear anything but fields and woods and familiar animals. Hannibal loves cities though, art and culture and centuries of architecture piled on top of each other. Once they’re settled in a tiny, perfect apartment, he dresses Will in suits that fit too well and takes him out to promenade on the avenues like something out of a nineteenth-century novel. It’s dreamlike in those first days, so far removed from any reality Will has ever known that he wonders if he’ll wake with his ears ringing in a hospital bed. When they left the US, he was still groggy with painkillers, bandaged to look as though he’d come from a plastic surgeon and not a fall that should have killed them both.

“There will be a scar,” Hannibal told him, checking the real bandage across his torn cheek, stitched through inside and out but stinging when Will tried to move his face. “But you will still be exquisite.”

Hannibal is earnest in complimenting him, and Will can hardly bear the weight of it, used to coyness and dissembling.

Hannibal calls him “exquisite” again in the boutiques in Vienna where Will is fitted for suits that rival Hannibal’s own in pattern and detail. Will pretends not to hear the word as a small, dark haired woman tugs the hem of his pants down over his shoes.

He finds himself waiting for Hannibal to touch him, electric for even the brush of Hannibal’s fingers straightening his collar. There is only one bed in their new apartment, but it covers nearly the whole width of the bedroom, and when they’re on opposite sides of it, it’s as chaste as a childhood sleepover. But Will is sure this is temporary, this distance, and the first few nights he lies paralyzed in the dark, imagining what he would do if Hannibal reached out for him. It reaches the level of fantasy, and Will has to admit it is not his first fantasy about Hannibal.

And yet, night after night, Hannibal sleeps on the other side of the bed, wakes early to make beautiful breakfasts, thin crepes crisp at the edges, omelets spilling over with fresh vegetables, small tender sausages with the butcher paper left ostentatiously visible on the counter just so it’s clear that they were not of Hannibal’s own making.

He hasn’t killed anyone, as far as Will knows, and they’re hardly ever apart. Although he remembers Alana being Hannibal’s alibi once when he slipped out of bed beside her, and then he thinks better of his certainty. But Hannibal does not seem eager to be caught. He is not taunting the police or making a scene for Will to read like a love letter. Their life so far is simple and domestic.

Hannibal buys him a robe, unlike anything Will has ever had before, silk satin with wide sleeves that make Will feel absurd as they move over his skin. He is used to mornings at home in his boxers and undershirt. The fabric warms against his forearms as he sits at the table overlooking the street, until it’s almost like someone else touching him, brushing against him. On cloudy mornings he catches Hannibal watching him reflected in the glass, and it is an easier form of eye contact, when Hannibal is barely more than a flat silhouette. New fantasies bloom in Will’s mind, Hannibal pressing him against the window, holding him in place, creasing the satin robe until he has to take it off before it’s ruined. He looks away from the window and crosses his legs. He knows he’ll need to make himself come in the shower after breakfast, and it’s all he can think of until then, the imminent relief of it. Hannibal looks at him over the rim of his cup, and Will wonders if he can smell it, the sting of Will’s arousal in the air.

Someone in a shop refers to Will as Hannibal’s “partner” and Hannibal does not even try to correct him. Will stares at a display of antique coins and wonders how often that happens in German without him knowing. If he is Hannibal’s partner, why won’t Hannibal close the distance between them? He’s never shown any regard for Will’s boundaries, physical or otherwise, before.

Hannibal enjoys cooking, so their days are circumscribed by the time needed to prepare dinners. They eat late, in the continental style, but even so, they’re usually home by sundown, nightlife rolling by in clicking heels and laughter below the window, and Will learns to treat it like a natural phenomenon, like the rustle of trees and hum of insects outside his house in Wolf Trap. Sometimes Hannibal plays music on the little Bluetooth speaker he’s laid on the coffee table, switching wordlessly among compositions Will doesn’t recognize and won’t ask about. Will learns to read his moods in the music, in harsh cymbal crashes and soft meandering piano and low, mournful violin. At times he feels as if a bow is being drawn across his body, as though he’s vibrating in time with Hannibal’s music, in time with Hannibal himself.

One night Hannibal takes his hand as he’s chopping tomatoes, making a pulpy mess of it. He is gentle, as though he’s helping a child, but Will’s fingers clench on the knife handle as Hannibal shows him a new motion. Hannibal is pressed against him, all along his side, and his breath is low and even as Will manages the rest of one tomato before he sets the knife aside and turns, leaning farther into Hannibal’s body.

Hannibal’s eyes go to Will’s mouth, and Will thinks Hannibal will kiss him this time. Surely, Hannibal will kiss him this time. But Hannibal steps away. “One tomato will be fine,” he says, returning to the stove. Will’s sense of loss is wrenching. His cheeks burn with humiliation, and he begins to wonder if desire is not what animates Hannibal at all, if what Hannibal wants from him has never been as base as sex.

He tries to reassess what he knows about Hannibal, removing that part of the profile. Perhaps Hannibal has brought him here for the love of aesthetics. Will wonders if he could live with that, shuffle his own desire into a neat little corner to be dealt with at private moments. It wouldn’t be so different from the persistent singleness of his entire adult life before Molly.

He forces himself into a new discipline, not leaning into Hannibal’s touch, not courting it. He learns to straighten his own tie to avoid the temptation of Hannibal pressing close to do it for him. It aches, but he thinks he can get used to it.

“Have I done something wrong, Will?” Hannibal asks, when Will flinches away from the hands smoothing the shoulders of his coat.

Will looks past him and shakes his head. He is imagining Hannibal’s pressing on his shoulders, pushing him down to his knees. He’s ashamed of how much he wants it. “I just got lost for a moment.”

Hannibal cocks his head. “If something is bothering you, I would like to know.”

Will shakes his head again. “We should go, before the market gets too crowded.”

“Of course,” says Hannibal, and he tucks his arm through Will’s as they leave.

Hannibal watches him as they make their way through the maze-like corridors of the market, each stall discretely busy, purposeful in its daily routine. Will tries to pass unnoticed as usual, and yet today Hannibal insists on asking his opinion about fruit preserves and cuts of pork, matters of taste Will couldn’t care less about. It feels almost mocking, and Will finds himself resenting it, responding less and less.

Hannibal sets a pork shoulder gently in a canvas shopping bag, nestled between an acorn squash and a jar of gooseberry jam. There’s an edge to his voice when he says, “If you do not feel comfortable sharing with me like this, perhaps we should return to our old ways of communicating.”

Will smiles tightly. “I like it better now that we’re not trying to kill each other.”

Hannibal pats his arm. “I was thinking of a therapy session.”

 

Hannibal sends him out for fresh bread early the next morning. Will pulls on jeans and a soft black sweater and sets off in the pearly light of dawn. The city is easier at this hour, when anyone who’s out is moving with purpose and direction, barely looking up from their errands. He falls into the current and lets it carry him to the bakery up the road, slips into the floury familiar hum of the shop. The sleepy teenager behind the counter doesn’t demand small talk and Will leaves with a warm, soft loaf tucked under his arm.

Will comes back from the bakery to find Hannibal has moved the two armchairs in their living room in to face each other in front of the fireplace, a leather bound notebook resting in one of them. It looks nothing like his office in Baltimore, and yet it resonates, draws Will back to another time.

Hannibal sets the bread on the counter and nods at the tableau. “Perhaps you could humor me before breakfast? Just a little?”

“For old times’ sake,” says Will, and he sinks into the chair across from Hannibal’s. He wonders why this couldn’t have waited until after breakfast, but Hannibal would have wanted him off guard, so it’s not really a question. “Should I tell you about my childhood?”

Hannibal smiles and opens his notebook. “That sounds like a fine place to start, if you like.” He waits with his pen poised, as though prepared to take dictation. Behind him the sun is golden through the window, the fullness of morning making him blinding to look at.

Will looks at the fireplace instead. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Why don’t you start with a memory? Something that calls to mind a strong emotion. Anger, or elation, or lust.”

“Lust?” Will rolls the word off his tongue almost unwillingly. Does Hannibal know he’s started showering in the evening just so he can masturbate before getting into their shared bed?

Hannibal’s face is impassive. “If you like. When you were young, what did you desire most? What called to you most irresistibly?”

Will remembers that lust does not have to mean something sexual. He keeps his eyes on the screen in front of the fireplace, shame ringing in his ears as he redirects his thoughts. “I wanted so much. I sometimes thought want was all I was because we didn’t have much, so everything the other kids at school had seemed like a punishment.”

“A punishment? But you had done nothing wrong.”

“I didn’t know that. My dad used to say things like, ‘I’ll get you a new bike if you’re very good,’ but I was never going to be good enough because we’d never have money for a new bike. Good enough just got further and further away, and there was nothing I could do.”

“Did you feel guilty?”

“Yes.” Will decides not to elaborate.

“We have discussed your feelings of guilt before. You take a great deal on your shoulders that does not belong to you.”

Will shakes his head. “Not anymore. I’m not trying to get into anyone else’s head anymore. Whatever’s left, it’s mine.”

“And, that being the case, you no longer feel guilt for your own desires?”

He can’t avoid Hannibal’s eyes, and yet he cannot possibly meet them. He feels as though he’s been backed into a corner. Even the chair beneath him feels more rigid, suddenly, the walls of the apartment looming in on him. “What do you want me to say, Hannibal?”

“Just tell me what you desire, Will. That is all I’ve ever wanted.”

Will’s jaw feels tight, tension coiling in all of his joints, elbows and knees, hips and shoulders. He imagines Hannibal slicing him open, carving out his desires, scooping them up to lay like organs between them. Will wonders how they would look, bloodied and gleaming, if he would feel lighter with them excised. “Some desires need to be reciprocated,” Will says softly. “And if they’re not, it’s better not to mention them.”

Hannibal steeples his fingers in front of his mouth, and Will’s vibrating imagination fills with every way Hannibal might touch him with those hands. He sees the trap closing around him, but he doesn’t know what Hannibal will do once he’s caught. “I want you,” he says, the words like a rope squeezing tight around his chest, creaking as it ties him down. He looks, but of course it’s nothing, just his outwardly normal body in an armchair. He looks like someone who could get up and walk away, but he can’t. “I want to kiss you. I want to touch you. I want to suck your cock.” His voice is breathless and thready, lungs constricting under invisible pressure.

Hannibal shifts in his chair, crosses his legs in the opposite direction. “And somehow you have gained the impression that those things would be unwelcome.”

Will tries to take a deeper breath. He stares at Hannibal’s knee, not the slightest tremble in his pose. “You don’t invite them.”

“Don’t I?” Hannibal sets aside his notebook and pen. He uncrosses his legs and does not re-cross them, thighs parted so that Will cannot help but look between them.

He imagines crawling across the floor to press his face in Hannibal’s lap. He doesn’t think he could walk, his whole body flushed and trembling as it is. “You could have been clearer,” he says, in a poor imitation of disaffection.

Hannibal cocks his head and begins to undo his trousers, long fingers working over his fly, the inviting shape of his cock beneath. “I do not want you to feel confused or uncertain, Will. There is no need for that now, when we can know each other truly.” He reaches into his trousers, rubbing at himself through his underwear while Will watches, transfixed, gripping tight to the arms of the chair.

Hannibal makes a soft noise, and Will slides down onto the floor as though gravity has forced him there, as though his body is now too heavy to do anything but move towards him. He crawls, because that feels right, palms flat on the carpet. He’s never sucked cock before, but as he reaches Hannibal’s spread thighs, his mouth is almost watering with desire. He rests his cheek against Hannibal’s thigh and breathes in the earthy, human scent of him, the bitter tang of arousal even Hannibal can’t hide. He’s sometimes thought Hannibal must be more, must be something other than just human, but as he nuzzles up towards Hannibal’s crotch, it’s obvious that Hannibal is just flesh and blood like anyone else.

Having come this far, Will has to be careful about his next steps. He feels unprepared, now that he’s here, pressing his lips to the shape of Hannibal’s cock through his underwear. It’s less intimidating with the barrier of cotton between his open mouth and Hannibal’s skin, and Hannibal sighs in apparent contentment, letting him do just this. He rests his hands on his knees in a pose like meditation as Will sucks at the fabric over the tip of Hannibal’s swelling cock, pulling it into his mouth just a little. He wishes Hannibal would touch him, direct him, but of course he won’t. He’s already given Will all the guidance he asked for. If he wants more, he’ll have to ask for that too.

“Touch me,” he says softly, lips nearly brushing Hannibal’s cock. “Show me how.”

Hannibal’s hands move, one caressing Will’s face and the other reaching for his cock, pulling it out so it’s tantalizingly close to Will’s face. Will looks at it, the full length and breadth of it, and desire washes over him in waves. He leans in, getting his lips on it again, breathing in the scent of Hannibal’s skin, the heat of it. Hannibal’s hand slips into his hair, almost incidental over the curve of his skull. Will works his tongue over the head, an experimental swirl around the edge of Hannibal’s foreskin, and when he looks up, his eyes catch Hannibal’s and he can’t look away again for a long time. Hannibal’s expression is warm, fond, almost proprietary, the way he looked on a bloody cliff in the moonlight, as though Will is everything he could have hoped for.

“You’re doing very well,” Hannibal tells him quietly, gripping more firmly at his hair, and Will’s ears ring with how much he likes hearing it. He opens his mouth around the head of Hannibal’s cock, showing that he can, that he isn’t afraid of it. He firms his lips around it, covering his teeth, wondering if Hannibal expects him to bite. It seems unfair to do this before he’s even kissed Hannibal’s mouth, but then the intimacy of their relationship has never followed the expected path.

Will leans in farther, pushing the head of Hannibal’s cock to the back of his tongue and shutting his eyes as his gag reflex threatens and subsides. He can do this. He can hold Hannibal inside him, move around him with a wet pull of spit, taste the early spill of him, thin fluid reminiscent of seawater and blood, familiar.

Hannibal sighs and twists his fingers in Will’s hair, and Will’s scalp tingles pleasantly. He presses forward, elbowing onto the edge of the chair as he sucks Hannibal’s cock as deep as he can, finding a rhythm within his own labored breath. The sound of his mouth seems too loud, greedy and wet, and Hannibal isn’t making any noise of his own. But the trembling clutch of his fingers in Will’s hair gives him confidence. Hannibal holds onto him, firm, compelling pressure, holding him back when he would choke himself on Hannibal’s cock, guiding him like a rudder in a storm. He lets himself get lost in the sensation of it, lets his focus narrow down until the world is just heat and spit and skin and the pull of Hannibal’s fingers. 

A sharp tug on his hair brings him back, and he looks up as Hannibal shoves forward into his mouth, deeper than he’s allowed himself so far, and comes. It’s heavy and hot on the back of Will’s tongue, and he coughs and pushes away, startled.

“That was rude,” he gasps out, and Hannibal gives him a delighted smile.

“I apologize,” says Hannibal, warmth and languor woven into his voice. “A moment’s impulse. Come here, Will.”

Will thinks about standing, about taking one step to tower over Hannibal in his chair, but his knees are watery, so in the end he lets Hannibal help him into his lap, Will’s legs barely fitting to either side of his hips, Hannibal’s softening cock tucked away neatly in his trousers again. He looks down into Hannibal’s face, warm and fond, and Hannibal touches his jaw, guiding him into a kiss. Will can’t help but close his eyes as Hannibal’s mouth touches his, softly opening.

Hannibal kisses persuasively, licking into Will’s mouth and tasting himself there, one hand settling at the small of Will’s back to keep him in place. Will sets both of his hands on Hannibal’s shoulders as he leans in close, and still he almost overbalances when Hannibal’s free hand goes to his cock. He’s hard. He’s been hard almost this whole time and kissing Hannibal isn’t doing anything to change that. Hannibal unfastens his trousers with one hand, fingers gliding over the rigid shape of Will’s cock, and Will squirms, breaking away from the kiss to gasp a few breaths. He rests his forehead against Hannibal’s, looks down as Hannibal works his cock free from his boxers, holding it gently in the cup of his palm.

“Go on,” says Will, and Hannibal kisses him again and starts to stroke him. It’s dry, nearly painfully so, and Hannibal moves slowly to reduce the friction, but Will can barely stand the tease of it. He pushes his hips into Hannibal’s hand, greedy. Hannibal lets go of him though, sits back a little and holds up his palm to Will’s mouth, and he understands the request. Will licks it, thoroughly, cheeks hot as Hannibal watches him do it. It feels as intimate as sucking his cock.

When Hannibal touches him again, it’s slicker but still barely enough, and Will arches towards him anyway, angling to kiss him. “There are so many ways I want to touch you, Will,” Hannibal says at the corner of his mouth, and the noise that comes from Will’s throat is soft and wounded, impossible to keep inside. Hannibal kisses his jaw and the tender throb of his pulse, and Will bends his head for it, letting Hannibal wrap around him, engulf him. Hannibal’s teeth graze his skin, and Will imagines him biting down, biting through, but he moves on again, back to Will’s mouth, pressing his tongue inside. The movement of his hand becomes more urgent, and Will can feel himself shaking, tensing, moments from coming as Hannibal’s thumb smears across the slick head of his cock, teasing against the sensitive slit. It’s as though he wants to feel Will coming as close up as possible, and Will can’t help spilling over in Hannibal’s grip, thick strands of come trapped by Hannibal’s hand as it covers the head of his cock. He imagines Hannibal lifting it to his mouth, making him taste it and compare the flavor to Hannibal’s own, asking questions like he does about wine. But instead Hannibal lets go of him all at once to lick his own fingers. He shuts his eyes to do it, and Will feels lightheaded watching him savor it.

“May I take you to bed, Will?” Hannibal asks softly, bringing his licked hand up to cup Will’s cheek. Will imagines flecks of his own come drying in his beard and finds he doesn’t care. “It would mean a further delay to our breakfast.”

Will is coltish and unsteady as he unfolds from Hannibal’s lap, and he doesn’t even bother to fasten his pants. Hannibal is looking him up and down with renewed desire, blatant enough that it chases off any of Will’s remaining uncertainties. “I have to admit, I’m not all that worried about breakfast right now,” he says.


End file.
